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Renderman z-depth files in Final Cut Pro for compositing?
Hi there, I’m trying to blend some 2D animation with 3D environments. I am rendering the 3D environments in 3delight (renderman based renderer) and I am able to output a z-depth file. However, I can’t find any information about using z-depth files in Final Cut Pro.
I have read that applications like Shake and Adobe After Effects are more suited to this task since they are designed as effects packages and I now get the impression FCP is intended more as an editing suite but I was wondering if it was possible to do. There are effects plug-ins for FCP and I’d like to be able to apply them using depth files.
I’d quite like to do post-pro z-depth blurring and fog effects.
Z-files are usually just grayscale tiffs that tell you how far objects are from the camera. So to test if FCP has z-depth support, you don’t need 3delight, you can just make an image in Photoshop or something with black on the left of the image and white on the right then try to place layers/effects according to the tiff file. If someone could figure it out and explain how to do it, I’d very much appreciate it.
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7 Replies
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To my knowledge your major choices for Z-depth compositing are:
Mac OS X
Apple Shake
Adobe After Effects ProWindows PC
Adobe After Effects Pro
eyeon Digital FusionProprietary Highend Platforms
Quantel
Discreet Smoke, Flame, FlintThe following book might help you composite in FCP “Motion Graphics and Effects in Final Cut Pro” by Kevin Monahan, has the following quote:
Chapter 10. Video Generators: How to get the most out of generators. They have much more firepower than meets the eye! Use them for geometric shapes, travel matte effects, creating graphic fill, or as standalone design elements. Tricking the render order pipeline and Z-depth matting is also covered to get even more mileage out of your stock generators.
FCP is not a compositing application, it is a non-linear editing application with layering capability.
HTH,
Bryce Whiteside -
Whoops! Forgot Autodesk Combustion is also on Mac OS X and Windows and includes Z-depth.
Errors and corrections,
Bryce Whiteside -
Thank you for your fast reply. I’ll have a look at that book and see how feasible it is. I’m a little disappointed that the company I work for spent so much money on Final Cut Studio when it doesn’t really do what I need. They do a lot of film editing but it’s fairly simple stuff and I’m sure you can do such basic editing in a compositing application. They have Premiere anyway and have even used imovie for some stuff. So far, FCP has been underused.
Shake seems really expensive so I think After Effects would be the best choice. I wonder why Shake is 3 times the price if they are in direct competition.
The only application I really like in the Final Cut Studio is DVD Studio Pro so maybe that + After Effects would meet my needs. Final Cut Pro 5 is quite unstable on the quad G5 at work too so I think returning the software is the only solution.
Thanks again for your help.
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It seems Combustion gets better reviews from what I’ve seen and is cheaper than AE. I’m glad you mentioned it because it looks ideal weighing up cost and features. I can’t believe Autodesk own that as well, it’s like they are trying to take over the digital world – they own Maya, 3ds and the discreet stuff now.
So the workflow would go something like
Renderman>Combustion>DVD Studio Pro
Possibly imovie and Premiere in there too. That seems like a reliable and cost effective workflow.
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And you don’t think Steve Jobs isn’t trying to take over the digital world–iPod, iTunes, video iPod, Intel CPU’s, Shake (It use to have a Windows version), Final Cut Pro (it use to be KeyGrip at Macromedia and was also being developed on Windows NT), LiveType (it use to be India Titler Pro from Prismo Graphics), Pixar and now on the board of Disney.
Apple, soup to nuts from content creation, distribution and delivery.
Amazing,
Bryce Whiteside -
If you look closely here, Apple – Final Cut Studio – Top Questions, you will see DVD Studio Pro in the future will only be available as part of the Final Cut Studio bundle according to the buzz I have been reading.
FYI,
Bryce Whiteside -
Yeah it looks like Apple’s in it for the whole lot too. I knew Shake had a Windows version but I didn’t know about FCP and LiveType. I was even surprised to hear itunes was based on SoundJam.
I noticed that about DVD Studio Pro when I was trying to get a price for a standalone version. I don’t like it when companies make you buy their whole software suite when you just need one app.
I’ve actually found a free app called Edo for OS X and that might suffice for what I need just now. It says it supports z-depth compositing:
I think I’ll have to more research before settling on a commercial version. I’ll check out the Combustion demo.
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